The Silent Bullet Part 5

"Do you think that's fair?" I asked hotly, "to take that girl off her guard, to insinuate yourself into her confidence as a medical adviser, and worm out of her some kind of fact incriminating someone? I suppose that's your plan, and I don't like the ethics, or rather the lack of ethics, of the thing."

"Now think a minute, Walter. Perhaps I am wrong; I don't know. Certainly I feel that the end will justify the means. I have an idea that I can get from Miss Bond the only clue that I need, one that will lead straight to the criminal. Who knows? I have a suspicion that the thing I'm going to do is the highest form of your so-called ethics. If what Fletcher tells us is true that girl is going insane over this thing.

Why should she be so shocked over the death of an uncle she did not live with? I tell you she knows something about this case that it is necessary for us to know, too. If she doesn't tell someone, it will eat her mind out. I'll add a dinner to the box of cigars we have already bet on this case that what I'm going to do is for the best--for her best."

Again I yielded, for I was coming to have more and more faith in the old Kennedy I had seen made over into a first-cla.s.s detective, and together we started for the Greenes', Craig carrying something in one of those long black handbags which physicians use.

Fletcher met us on the driveway. He seemed to be very much affected, for his face was drawn, and he shifted from one position to another nervously, from which we inferred that Miss Bond was feeling worse. It was late afternoon, almost verging on twilight, as he led us through the reception-hall and thence onto a long porch overlooking the bay and redolent with honeysuckle.

Miss Bond was half reclining in a wicker chair us we entered. She started to rise to greet us, but Fletcher gently restrained her, saying, as he introduced us, that he guessed the doctors would pardon any informality from an invalid.

Fletcher was a pretty fine fellow, and I had come to like him; but I soon found myself wondering what he had ever done to deserve winning such a girl as Helen Bond. She was what I should describe as the ideal type of "new" woman,--tall and athletic, yet without any affectation of mannishness. The very first thought that struck me was the incongruousness of a girl of her type suffering from an attack of "nerves," and I felt sure it must be as Craig had said, that she was concealing a secret that was having a terrible effect on her. A casual glance might not have betrayed the true state of her feelings, for her dark hair and large brown eyes and the tan of many suns on her face and arms betokened anything but the neurasthenic. One felt instinctively that she was, with all her athletic grace, primarily a womanly woman.

The sun sinking toward the hills across the bay softened the brown of her skin and, as I observed by watching her closely, served partially to conceal the nervousness which was wholly unnatural in a girl of such poise. When she smiled there was a false note in it; it was forced and it was sufficiently evident to me that she was going through a mental h.e.l.l of conflicting emotions that would have killed a woman of less self-control.

I felt that I would like to be in Fletcher's shoes--doubly so when, at Kennedy's request, he withdrew, leaving me to witness the torture of a woman of such fine sensibilities, already hunted remorselessly by her own thoughts.

Still, I will give Kennedy credit for a tactfulness that I didn't know the old fellow possessed. He carried through the preliminary questions very well for a pseudo-doctor, appealing to me as his a.s.sistant on inconsequential things that enabled me to "save my face" perfectly. When he came to the critical moment of opening the black bag, he made a very appropriate and easy remark about not having brought any sharp shiny instruments or nasty black drugs.

"All I wish to do, Miss Bond, is to make a few, simple little tests of your nervous condition. One of them we specialists call reaction time, and another is a test of heart action. Neither is of any seriousness at all, so I beg of you not to become excited, for the chief value consists in having the patient perfectly quiet and normal. After they are over I think I'll know whether to prescribe absolute rest or a visit to Newport."

She smiled languidly, as he adjusted a long, tightly fitting rubber glove on her shapely forearm and then encased it in a larger, absolutely inflexible covering of leather. Between the rubber glove and the leather covering was a liquid communicating by a gla.s.s tube with a sort of dial. Craig had often explained to me how the pressure of the blood was registered most minutely on the dial, showing the varied emotions as keenly as if you had taken a peep into the very mind of the subject.

I think the experimental psychologists called the thing a "plethysmograph."

Then he had an apparatus which measured a.s.sociation time. The essential part of this instrument was the operation of a very delicate stop-watch, and this duty was given to me. It was nothing more nor less than measuring the time that elapsed between his questions to her and her answers, while he recorded the actual questions and answers and noted the results which I worked out. Neither of us was unfamiliar with the process, for when we were in college these instruments were just coming into use in America. Kennedy had never let his particular branch of science narrow him, but had made a practice of keeping abreast of all the important discoveries and methods in other fields. Besides, I had read articles about the chronoscope, the plethysmograph, the sphygmograph, and others of the new psychological instruments. Craig carried it off, however, as if he did that sort of thing as an every-day employment.

"Now, Miss Bond," he said, and his voice was so rea.s.suring and persuasive that I could see she was not made even a shade more nervous by our simple preparations, "the game--it is just like a children's parlour game--is just this: I will say a word--take 'dog,' for instance.

You are to answer back immediately the first word that comes into your mind suggested by it--say 'cat.' I will say 'chain,' for example, and probably you will answer 'collar,' and so on. Do you catch my meaning?

It may seem ridiculous, no doubt, but before we are through I feel sure you'll see how valuable such a test is, particularly in a simple case of nervousness such as yours."

I don't think she found any sinister interpretation in his words, but I did, and if ever I wanted to protest it was then, but my voice seemed to stick in my throat.

He was beginning. It was clearly up to me to give in and not interfere.

As closely as I was able I kept my eyes riveted on the watch and other apparatus, while my ears and heart followed with mingled emotions the low, musical voice of the girl.

I will not give all the test, for there was much of it, particularly at the start, that was in reality valueless, since it was merely leading up to the "surprise tests." From the colourless questions Kennedy suddenly changed. It was done in an instant, when Miss Bond had been completely disarmed and put off her guard.

"Night," said Kennedy. "Day," came back the reply from Miss Bond.

"Automobile." "Horse."

"Bay." "Beach."

"Road." "Forest."

"Gate." "Fence."

"Path." "Shrubs."

"Porch." "House."

Did I detect or imagine a faint hesitation?

"Window." "Curtain."

Yes, it was plain that time. But the words followed one another in quick succession. There was no rest. She had no chance to collect herself. I noted the marked difference in the reaction time and, in my sympathy, d.a.m.ned this cold; scientific third degree.

"Paris." "France."

"Quartier Latin." "Students."

"Apaches." Craig gave it its Gallicised p.r.o.nunciation, "Apash."

"Really, Dr. Kennedy," she said, "there is nothing I can a.s.sociate with them--well, yes, les vaches, I believe. You had better count that question out. I've wasted a good many seconds."

"Very well, let us try again," he replied with a forced unconcern, though the answer seemed to interest him, for "les vaches" meant "the cows," otherwise known as the police.

No lawyer could have revelled in an opportunity for putting leading questions more ruthlessly than did Kennedy. He snapped out his words sharply and unexpectedly.

"Chandelier." "Light."

"Electric light," he emphasised. "Broadway," she answered, endeavouring to force a new a.s.sociation of ideas to replace one which she strove to conceal.

"Safe." "Vaults." Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the indicator showed a tremendously increased heart action. As for the reaction time, I noted that it was growing longer and more significant.

Remorselessly he pressed his words home. Mentally I cursed him.

"Rubber." "Tire."

"Steel." "Pittsburg," she cried at random.

"Strong-box," No answer.

"Lock." Again no answer. He hurried his words. I was leaning forward, tense with excitement and sympathy.

"Key." Silence and a fluttering of the blood pressure indicator.

"Will."

As the last word was uttered her air of frightened defiance was swept away. With a cry of anguish, she swayed to her feet. "No, no, doctor, you must not, you must not," she cried with outstretched arms. "Why do you pick out those words of all others? Can it be--" If I had not caught her I believe she would have fainted.

The indicator showed a heart alternately throbbing with feverish excitement and almost stopping with fear. What would Kennedy do next, I wondered, determined to shut him off as soon as I possibly could. From the moment I had seen her I had been under her spell. Mine should have been Fletcher's place, I knew, though I cannot but say that I felt a certain grim pleasure in supporting even momentarily such a woman in her time of need.

"Can it be that you have guessed what no one in the world, no, not even dear old Jack, dreams Oh, I shall go mad, mad, mad!"

Kennedy was on his feet in an instant, advancing toward her. The look in his eyes was answer enough for her. She knew that he knew, and she paled and shuddered, shrinking away from him.

"Miss Bond," he said in a voice that forced attention--it was low and vibrating with feeling--"Miss Bond, have you ever told a lie to shield a friend?"

"Yes," she said, her eyes meeting his.

"So can I," came back the same tense voice, "when I know the truth about that friend."